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HARD WICKE ' S S CIE NCE- G O SSI P. 



kind are naturally paler, and here garden flowers 

 ■often turn suddenly white, and so should it be 

 in Castille. I have tracked these tranformation 

 Chalk Hill blues from Valladolid to Valencia, but on j 

 entering on the damp mountains of the Asturias, that ' 

 act like a sponge in sucking in the Atlantic clouds ! 

 and clarifying the Castilian air, I noticed that they 

 there wore their usual blue d*ess. Hence it is 

 evident that dry calcium is a bleaching powder ; and 

 there is a reason why the pale hills should be popu- 

 lated by forms so wan. Let us now turn to the iron 

 tonic. Is any moon-struck lover desirous to taste the 

 love philter of the Syrian damsels, let him take a 

 railway-ticket to Treves previous to a July thunder- ; 

 plump. The Moselle is creeping along, low in 

 its channel, brick-red and lurid. The purple clouds 

 are mirrowed red, and the strip of intense blue 

 between reflects laky purple. Beneath the red rocks 

 he will start to see its maternal bosom curdle as with 

 clotted gore. The blood-drops of Adonis are dripping 

 on the purple floss of the Geranium sanguineitm and 

 trickling down the sticky stems of the Silene armeria : 

 and from the bosky ravine Cupid in giddy chase leads 

 forth the queen of loveliness riding the sly-eyed boar. 

 No, the slant sunbeam fades, and it is the all indelible 

 blood of the Theban cohort that mantles there, and 

 the little Christian maiden leaps and screams — er- 

 schrecklich. Slow echoing up the valley growls the 

 thunder, beneath the red rocks the current turns blue 

 and pure, but on the opposite bank it swerves among 

 the lean bluish barley, red and more turbid : and now 

 the deluge is sweeping down in its strength, no longer 

 red, but yellow and sparkling as Moselle mousseux. 

 Let us walk up this acacia-scented shade and observe 

 how Nature paints her colours on rocks so red and 

 soluble. There is a glow around, and the white and 

 zigzag clovers have a rosy hue ; but brown, and black 

 are evidently here in fashion. The bramble stems 

 have a look of porphyry, and a company of escargots 

 (Helix pomatia) crawling on the wet bank carry shells 

 as brown as chestnuts. The black and brown butter- 

 flies are all most unusually black, and something akin 

 to ink blots and inks in their wing patterns. Our 

 manufacturing towns change the white moths in their 

 vicinity into blackamoors, and iron oxide and 

 vegetable acid make ink ; and could we bottle an 

 extract of native soil we might create varieties at 

 pleasure. Stay, my friend, in practice I have never 

 produced much effect on living things by a use of 

 inorganic chemicals ; Nature is wiser than I, and her 

 love philters are more potent. — A. H. Stuinton. 



Thrushes' Nest on the Ground. — Whilst 

 rambling in the neighbourhood of Dromore, co. 

 Down, lately, I discovered a fine thrushes' nest with 

 four eggs, situated in long grass on the ground. It 

 was near a river, and close to a shrubbery. I should 

 like to know if it is unusual for thrushes to build on 

 the ground. — F. J. Bigger, Belfast. 



Before Darwinists were Metamorphosists. 

 — It is pleasant to think that in the middle ages 

 Rochester Priory possessed its Book of Flowers and 

 its description of Noah's Ark, and to learn that 

 monasteries equipped their divines and metamor- 

 phosists as well as their knights of the sword, for to 

 them was entrusted the formation of language and 

 ideas which mould themselves with difficulty to the 

 age. The maiden of sweet seventeen who has 

 watched the alkanet drop its sad bells one by one in 

 the shadows, and who has striven to think that flower 

 of blue was once the athlete Ilyacinthus killed by a 

 quoit, will readily pardon the helpful monk who be- 

 thought him to supplement the grand fiats with some 



small compliancy on the part of the nature herself 

 drawn from so dreamy a source ; for poor man, great 

 in Genesis and the Classics, museums and microscopes, 

 had never conjured up a phantom of Darwinism to 

 expound that a dull order was Heaven's first law. 

 Thus the writer of the Natural History, 1270, 

 alphabetically arranged, after prefacing an arbitrary 

 idea of the creation of man borrowed from the Latin, 

 proceeds to describe the animals, birds, sea and 

 river animals, reptiles, fish and insects, in groups as 

 the Biblical idea directed ; beginning otherwise 

 methodically with A is the ass, and including among 

 his freight of two hundred and eighty, or thereabouts, 

 Pegasus and the Phenix. Yet the transaction is not 

 wholly incurious, since the social ways of the beavers 

 in the forests of Poland, according to Jacob, appears 

 drawn from life, while the proclivities of the boar 

 and bear in Germany are detailed with a gush and 

 gastronomic relish. For the same reason, an enquiry 

 as to the origin of Perpetual Motion in a Prime 

 Mover of Infinite Power, inspired the logician of 

 those days with an uncomfortable notion of stu- 

 pendous violence since none had pushed generation 

 to its limits and observed the working of the great 

 in the infinitely little. Who will not allow that 

 Darwinism is an advance on the score of integrity ? — 

 A. H. Swiii ton. 



Notes on Hybrid Zebras. — Mr. Tegetmeier has 

 communicated to the " Field" the following account 

 of a very interesting experiment on the breeding of 

 hybrid zebras, and their fertility or sterility, which 

 is in progress at Theobalds, the estate of Sir Henry 

 Meux. " Some few years since, a very fine female 

 specimen of Burchell's zebra (Eqiins Burchelli) was 

 obtained from the Zoological Society, and turned 

 into the park in company with a herd of ponies. 

 Burchell's zebra, I may state, is the species most 

 frequently captured, and by far the most in Zoological 

 collections. It is an inhabitant of the plains, the 

 other species dwelling in the mountainous districts 

 of South Africa. Contrary to general belief, the 

 zebras are tamed without difficulty, if proper treat- 

 ment is adopted towards them. On going into the 

 park at Theobalds, I was cautioned against ap- 

 proaching the zebra ; but, having confidence in my 

 power ol making friends with animals, I quietly 

 walked up to her when grazing, took care not to 

 alarm her, and was leaning on her withers and 

 patting her off side in a couple of minutes. In fact 

 this zebra is much more docile than the two fillies of 

 which she is a parent. The eldest of these, rising 

 three years old, was sired by one of the ponies in the 

 park, and shows the stripes of the zebra only to a 

 moderate degree. The other, and by far the finer 

 filly, a yearling, the produce of a half-bred trotting 

 pony, imported, I believe, from the United States of 

 America. This yearling is beautifully striped, not 

 only on the legs and neck but also on the haunches. 

 As they have not been handled they are rather skit- 

 tish, having a good allowance of corn along with the 

 working ponies, all of which are in admirable con- 

 dition. There should be no difficulty in breaking in 

 these two fillies to harness. Many of my readers 

 must remember two hybrid zebras belonging to the 

 Zoological Society, that were formerly driven about 

 town tandem, in a light cart. They were as docile 

 as any ordinary horses ; and with judicious treatment, 

 there is no doubt these two fillies would be equally 

 amenable to gentle and judicious discipline. Ordinary 

 mules are characterised by great nervous excitability, 

 and my friend, Mr. C. L. Sutherland, is always 

 insisting on the necessity of accosting mules with 

 gentleness, so as to avoid startling them. He main- 



